A recent development in communications technology has been the rapid expansion of the Internet. Various techniques have been developed for delivering Internet services to customers. For example, a method of setting up cut-through connections is described in Specification No. EP-A2-0,781,010. Reference is also directed to our specification No GB-A-2 311 439 which relates to dynamic call tariffing in a communications network.
For system users, the advantages of the Internet are its convenience and in particular the flat rate charges that are applied for Internet access and use. The disadvantage of the Internet is that it is a connectionless `best effort` packet service and that under congestion conditions packets can be delayed, delivered in the wrong order or even discarded by the network. These problems can be mitigated by the service provider by purchasing sufficient bandwidth to accommodate anticipated demand. The advantage to the service provider is that such a service is simple to provide and bill for. However, with no transmission billing system, such as applies to conventional connection oriented networks, the service provider has the difficult task of estimating the minimum amount of expensive bandwidth that must be purchased from the network operator to provide customers with an acceptable quality of service.